Steinberg Institute Case Study

Steinberg Institute

Earned statewide media coverage

Supported advocacy behind SB 855 and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Overview

The Steinberg Institute is California's leading mental health and substance use policy advocacy organization. Founded in 2015 by former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the Institute works at the intersection of policy, research, and inspired leadership — advocating to ensure that people living with serious mental illness and substance use disorders have a real chance at stable, meaningful lives.

Their work has generated $5 billion for vital programs across California — from landmark mental health parity legislation to the 988 crisis line to thousands of units of supportive housing for unhoused Californians.

Client

Steinberg Institute

Year

2022-Present

Industry

Nonprofit

The Mission

Transform California’s mental health and substance use care systems

Scope

22 Films

Photography

Social Media

Selected Champion Stories

The Challenge

The Steinberg Institute had the data, the policy wins, and the legislative relationships — but they needed something harder to manufacture: human connection. Their communications were doing the work of informing, but not always the work of making people feel what was at stake.

Mental health and substance use carry enormous stigma. The people most affected are often spoken about but rarely invited to speak for themselves. The Institute needed stories that were honest, healing, and human — without reducing real people to cautionary tales or statistics.

Our Approach

We brought an ethical storytelling framework to every aspect of this collaboration — because when you're working with people who've navigated trauma and systems that have often failed them, how you tell the story matters as much as the story itself.

Before any camera was turned on, each participant went through a pre-interview process guided by Tamara Knox, ACSW, Ethical Narrative's Director of Ethics — assessing readiness, ensuring deep consent, and creating the conditions for a healing-centered filming experience. Story participants were co-collaborators with agency over their own narratives from the very first conversation.

Since 2022, we've completed 22 stories together — four Steinberg Institute Champions per year, spanning lived experience, policy leadership, clinical work, and community. This library has become a cornerstone of the Institute's communications strategy.

Result & Impact

A library that moves people and policy.

Five years and 20 portraits — a living body of work that gives face, voice, and humanity to the advocacy work the Institute leads every day in Sacramento and beyond.

Stories that open doors in the media.

The human-centered content helped the Steinberg Institute earn meaningful media attention, giving journalists the emotional context that data alone cannot provide.

Storytelling in service of real change.

The work has been used directly in advocacy and lobbying efforts — helping make the case for legislation, funding, and reform.